“Today is an important day for us, precisely in the respiratory sector, one of the historic areas of AstraZeneca”, because “we can boast the reimbursement of tezepelumab, the first anti-Tslp to be approved and reimbursed in our country to meet those who these are the clinical needs not yet satisfied in patients with severe asthma, around 300 thousand Italians”. This is how Raffaela Fede, medical director of AstraZeneca Italia, comments on the reimbursement obtained from Aifa for the first anti-Tslp monoclonal antibody (thymic stromal lymphopoietin, a cytokine upstream of the inflammatory cascade of the bronchial endothelium) for the treatment of severe asthma.
The drug has been shown “to reduce exacerbations, to improve lung function and therefore the quality of life of affected subjects – continues Fede – This is in line with our commitment in this area: being able to guarantee disease remission even for subjects suffering from severe asthma. Tezepelumab – he specifies – adds to an already present therapeutic armamentarium of biologics and will be available in all centers where severe asthma is treated, these are the second level centers where other biologics can already be prescribed”. This treatment with its innovative mechanism of action, as well as for its “clinical benefits”, has also been studied for “the possibility of reducing” the use “of oral corticosteroids – underlines Fede – which is still very frequent in these subjects, but which worsens the prognosis because the oral corticosteroid, however, damages other organs and systems. In the study program we wanted to test the possibility of reducing the use of oral corticosteroids as much as possible, among the advantages of this drug, to also improve the long-term prognosis of these subjects”.
But the search continues. Tezepelumab is “in development – adds the AstraZeneca medical director – also for the indication on nasal polyposis which represents a very frequent comorbidity in subjects with severe asthma”. Still within the respiratory area, “we have 18 new molecules and new indications under study between now and the next few years to confirm our commitment in this fundamental area, but also to continue to find new disease targets for a medicine of precision not only in severe asthma but also in COPD”, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease “which is another extremely important respiratory disease with high mortality rates. We also have – concludes Fede – new research fronts, such as eosinophilic pathologies, bronchiectasis and other lung diseases”.
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